GigaOM

The best sign that someone’s qualified to run an Internet startup may not be an MBA degree, but level 70 guild leader status, according to the latest issue of Harvard Business Review.
“Leadership’s Online Labs” by Byron Reeves, Thomas W. Malone, and Tony O’Driscoll is based on the authors’ research into the leadership [...]

Finally, another game widget worth adding next to Scrabulous. Last week came news that Jeff Bezos invested $3 million in casual game site Kongregate; I just noticed that CEO Jim Greer and his team have added a Kongregate Facebook widget to their service, too.

Here’s the metaverse mystery of the week: This strange new private island with a very familiar name recently emerged on the server grid of virtual world Second Life. Spotted yesterday by Second Life blogger Tateru Nino (and confirmed when I checked the world’s dynamic map today), we have to assume it’s an official Nintendo [...]

GameRail, a startup purporting to optimize latency for gamers, has closed up shop. An announcement posted on the company web site says that: “[T]he market does not appear to be ready to support a standalone network for gaming at this time.”
I never had a chance to check out the service, though early [...]

Apple Store To Go Virtual? That’s the theory of MacNN, at least, citing an Apple patent application published on the US government site last Thursday, somewhat obscurely entitled “Enhancing Online Shopping Atmosphere”.
The patent application’s stated goal is to create an online shopping experience that doesn’t feel “sterile and isolating” like a traditional retail [...]

GamerDNA is one of many social network for gamers. But now, thanks to Boston-based Flybridge Capital Partners, the company behind it has $3 million of Series A funding to make it stand out from the pack.
Formerly known as GuildCafe.com, a community site for fans of Guild Wars and other PC-centric MMORPGs, GamerDNA Inc. will use [...]